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The 5 Hinderances in Real Time

Set out to write on a topic; Doubt. Went some thing like this;

OK, doubt and the correlation to a great awaking when transcended from its grip;

First I‘ve got to set up to pay a few bills, just enough to keep them at bay and leave me with money to spend on what I want within reason until the next unforeseeable, feeble payday comes. Oh, what’s this? a low interest personal loan offer, take a look and dream for a minute, some old demons of taking a loan with no long term goal to actually pay for it. Oh what’s this? a Vistaprint coupon, thumb through some template designs of how to reinvent myself again in 6 square inches of flat stock or glossy.

Becoming the dissatisfaction of sensual desire (1) I’m frustrated and angry that I’ve wasted valuable time with these distractions that will only point out my inadequacy and taking that to fatalistic levels of ill-will (2) I get up, take a breather, walk around, stare out the window, pretending to embrace mindfulness, I’m just stalling in sloth (3) so I turn on Word to seemingly attempt to master the vast buttons telling me I’m now a master graphic designer. I take my Pali chant phrases from the sticky notes, paste them, draw borders, cut, drag, undo. “Googling” to find pronunciations and audio files of monastics in the endless libraries of “iDharma”, just tumbling down the web rabbit hole restlessly (4) seeking comfort in the ether. Then snapping back into a washed up blue collar white punk construction worker sitting at his keyboard in despair of purpose, finding no desire, will or worth in the chants, doubting (5) their value and those who pose it like I was about to. Realizing now how far I was from where I started 2 hours ago, a flare up of fuckit sets in about this article.

But there was the awaking. It was all a set up of validity of what my demons had planned from the gate; The five hindrances including, and usually leading to the biggy; Doubt! Another Tarentino tale list by Sid himself. That I had not yet written a word on the subject I was playing out in real time. I see you Mara, I’m awake.

But so what? What’s the value of the product of insight? Unless or until its played out in some form of merit, it’s just a reminder of our nature. Staring at this screen, sometimes head in hands; a brief reflection of the Zen monastics staring at a wall, endless hours averting intention for meaning in search of emptiness.

The inspiration for the suggestion to write on this came from my mention at a recovery meeting of a classic Zen aphorism;

With great doubt comes great awakening, with little doubt comes little awakening, with no doubt comes no awakening.

These Zen guys are clever and intriguing to say a little and mean a lot. I was told in my construction apprenticeship; if you go around knowing everything; you won’t learn shit and Buddha told me to question everything, believing only in my own direct experience.

So now I know a little more about nothing and a lot less about everything.